Pru pruuu. Lo Celso picks the ball up after the Sailor players run away from it (), takes a shot that gets deflected in to Richarlison who taps it in.
Pru Pru, motherfuckers! ...okay, I'll walk that back: Singapore's a nice place to be, even if their aquarium took fifteen years off my life
Porro is a classic example of the poor recruitment that has plagued us for years. I have no doubt one of the reasons his transfer dragged on for so long was the fact that we already had serious doubts over Conte. We went ahead with the signing, almost in sheer desperation, and brought in a very specific player accustomed to playing a very specific role in a very specific system....which we no longer play. And to accommodate his arrival, we cancelled the contract of another senior player. Absolute shambles and tbh I can't see him becoming a regular starter, which means we shelled out £40m for another player to sit on the bench. He can join Richarlison, Sanchez, Sessegnon, Ndombele, Lo Celso, Gil and Reguilon on the Most Expensive Bench in the World. £260m worth of pointless, wasted signings.
Here's the thing: the club didn't so much have serious doubts over Conte as they pretty much knew he was going to flounce at the end of the season even in January, but that had no effect on the Porro transfer considering the initial plan to replace him was to look at managers who use a similar 3ATB wingback system (most obviously Ruben Amorim) which does beg the question when the club started lining up those plans, as I very much doubt that was in March/April And let's be real, the reason the transfer dragged on was twofold: firstly because the options were pay £40m in one go or try to reach an agreement with Sporting where both parties are happy (and it was the second, as the deal was a £5m loan and £40m over 4-5 years) and secondly as the intermediaries brought in to handle negotiations when Paratici was otherwise engaged did a cack-handed job of it, hence Levy had to step in
Solomon - aka Aaron Lennon on that right wing - crosses into the box that gets deflected into Lo Celso who slots it away.
Here's the thing: Spending £40m on a player knowing that the manager who wanted him would be off a few months later and hoping his replacement would find said player useful, is the definition of insanity and is in fact far worse than the scenario I painted above. Utter stupidity.
It all starts at the top, Mourinho and Conte were never likely to stick around for long. So unless you're willing to break the bank and get exactly who they want, when they want you're destined to fail. We should of focussed on buying players able to adapt to multiple systems so irrelevant of the manager they will still have a future at the club. I think Porro will challenge for Kulu's spot with Emerson taking the RB spot.
Hattrick for the pigeon. Nice build up and he runs through to hit a small dink over the keeper’s leg.
No it isn't Insanity is not buying any players because you've decided and/or realised the manager won't be there come the summer transfer window That's why our initial focus was on managers who play 3ATB, entirely so there was a degree of continuity (and hopefully not Conte-nuity) with the squad, which admittedly is the same issue with bringing in the ubermensch as that was primarily to keep the squad together first
If all players had a clean slate and Ange picked his XI based off of performances so far, the starting XI for the Shakhtar game should be: Austin Emerson, Romero, no one, Udogie Sarr, Bissouma, Lo Celso Solomon, Richarlison, Perisic It is interesting that the on-paper first XI haven’t been anywhere near as impressive as the squad XI. And we can look at it from two angles: Encouraging that those on the fringes are putting in shifts to give the manager something to think about. Yet equally concerning that perceived nailed-on starters aren’t doing as expected. Sarr, Lo Celso, Solomon and Perisic have all impressed over both games so far.
There's also another way to look at it: the fringe players don't have four years of Conte and the ubermensch in their muscle memory, so they will be a little quicker to adapt as they won't have any learned bad habits to fall into (or, to put it another way, there's less for them to un-learn) For example Udogie never so much as shared a training pitch with Conte Maddison and Solomon only experienced Conteball on the other side of the pitch Lo Celso has eighteen months of playing for Unai Emery and Quique Setien in his muscle memory Bissouma getting injured in February ironically became a sort of reset button Emerson had a few months as a trad RB under Mason Perisic's muscle memory is from a different role altogether Sarr barely played so had less chance to pick up any bad habits On the other hand, Kane and Hojbjerg both still default to the tactics of the last 3-4 years during matches because they played more than nay other outfield player
Or more simply, the sides we’ve played haven’t switched their entire teams at half time, so we just have more energy across the pitch as they tire.
